Life Among the Xenophiles
by Selkit
Summary: Some aspects of romancing an alien are strange new territory, while others are all too familiar. Fifty one-sentence snapshots of Garrus and Shepard's relationship.


**Author's Note: **Written for the 1sentence community on LiveJournal. The sentences are in order according to the prompt numbers, not chronologically, so they jump around a bit timewise.

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**01 – Motion**

He knows he should probably be concentrating on other things—like _not dying_—yet Garrus still finds himself watching Shepard in the midst of battle, continually impressed at the other_, _more deadly ways she puts that flexibility to good use.

**02 – Cool**

Shepard puts on a resolute face as they walk the streets of Palaven, but Garrus sees her expression sliding into blissful relief when they reach their air-conditioned destination.

**03 – Young **

She flips through the holo-album, grinning at the images of tiny fringes and gangly limbs, her voice teasing when she adds, "So _that's_ what you look like without your eyepiece!"

**04 – Last**

Shepard doesn't like to dwell on it (_inconvenient_, she thinks, _that death and resurrection has a way of shaking up one's thought patterns_), but there are times when she looks at him and knows: someday will be their last day, last battle, last laugh over an unfortunate metaphor, last attempt at a kiss.

**05 – Wrong**

The first instant that Shepard steps in front of Sidonis, Garrus' vision goes blue with fury—if _she_ betrays him too, he has a feeling his reaction will make Jack look sane and well-adjusted.

**06 – Gentle**

It doesn't take Shepard long to discover that a talon's brush over her cheek is a far better wake-up call than any alarm clock.

**07 – One**

She comes to see him in the battery, late into the night cycle when everyone else is asleep, and tells him with naked relief in her eyes how much it means to have just one person to trust.

**08 – Thousand**

"Just as well your species can't live for millennia," Aethyta says with a smirk, "'cause you two are so damn schmoopy that I couldn't stomach seeing ya on a thousand years' worth of tabloid covers."

**09 – King**

Garrus doesn't fail to notice Jack sitting across the mess just staring at him, seemingly sizing him up; he's beginning to wonder if he should gear up for a fight when she suddenly declares, "I guess you must be Shepard's pirate king—you've got the eyepatch and everything."

**10 – Learn**

As Shepard stares intently at the turian board game pieces, Garrus can't help but relish the fact that _he's_ teaching _her_ for once.

**11 – Blur**

Two months back at C-Sec, six criminals thrown behind bars, and Garrus thinks life is finally going right this time—then Councilor Anderson shows up in his office with stony eyes and unthinkable news, and the world plunges into a tailspin.

**12 – Wait**

A flurry of hands descends on him before the shuttle's even powered down, Chakwas' voice barking orders Shepard can barely hear over the roaring in her ears, and then she can do nothing but wipe his blood from her armor and pace the briefing room again and again.

**13 – Change**

Standing outside Shepard's quarters with mandibles fluttering, heart pounding, hands clenching too-tight around a bottle of wine, Garrus can hardly believe it's been only two years since he scoffed at General Septimus' lady troubles.

**14 – Command**

"Commander" and "lover" were always black and white in his mind; he never expected to find a woman who would make gray look so appealing.

**15 – Hold**

"Y'know, you remind me of that old leather couch I used to crash on when I was a kid," Shepard murmurs, her voice thick with sleep, and Garrus chuckles as he wraps his arms tighter around her.

**16 – Need**

She's well aware that his dietary needs are different from hers—but she doesn't discover just _how_ different until their first real dinner date, when Garrus' meal comes complete with a bowl of small stones, and he ducks his head and mumbles something about "polishing gizzard."

**17 – Vision **

The Thorian's asari steps back and Shepard stumbles forward, her skin pale and her fingers trembling against her temples, and the bolt of concern that shoots through Garrus is different from anything he's experienced before.

**18 – Attention**

It never fails to amuse her that, even years later, his head still snaps around and his mandibles still flare when she puts on that little black dress.

**19 – Soul**

Garrus has already left the Citadel when he hears vague news reports on the reassignment of the _Normandy_'s former crew, and it doesn't surprise him—without Shepard as its anchor, the spirit of the team is unsettled and adrift, a specter without a resting place.

**20 – Picture**

He always feels a prickle of discomfort when he sees that image of Alenko, lying facedown on her desk; when it quietly disappears he doesn't ask about its fate.

**21 – Fool**

"Let 'em talk," Shepard says as they pass by the gapers, mockers and xenophobes, and a smirk twists her lips when she adds, "Haters gonna hate."

**22 – Mad**

She reaches over and grabs Garrus' hand, and thinks—with no shortage of amusement—that the resulting look of outrage on Councilor Velarn's face is her most notable political achievement since becoming a Spectre.

**23 – Child**

Garrus bends down to scoop one of Taetrus' littlest orphans into his arms, and Shepard discreetly disables her translator, blinking back sudden moisture as she listens to them murmur in their own tongue.

**24 – Now**

He hasn't even crossed the door's threshold when he finds himself thrown up against the wall, Shepard's hands working feverishly at his armor's seals, and all at once he sees the advantage in humanity's excess of fingers.

**25 – Shadow **

Sometimes—in the rare moments when there's nothing to shoot and no problems to solve—he finds her sitting alone, reliving her last moments with glassy eyes and shallow breaths, and his inability to help her infuriates him.

**26 – Goodbye**

"It's better—" she wheezes, her grip on his hand indomitable even now, "—better this time around because you're here."

**27 – Hide**

"I'm not going to sneak around like my personal life is something to be ashamed of," Shepard spits at Udina, eyes alight with anger as she continues; "Representing humanity doesn't mean I'm your or anyone's puppet, and if the media doesn't like it they can kiss my ass."

**28 – Fortune**

His father drilled into his head that _it's always better to be skilled than lucky, because your luck will run out, _but when he looks back on the sheer chance that led him to Shepard, he thinks the old man was wrong about a lot of things.

**29 – Safe**

The relief that floods her when he walks out of the operating room alive is intense—suicide mission or not, for the first time since she came back from the dead, she knows she has a solid rock to lean on.

**30 – Ghost**

He doesn't tell her, but part of the reason he went to Omega was because everything on the Citadel reminded him of what he'd lost.

**31 – Book**

"If I survive this," Shepard says, waving her hand in an all-encompassing motion, "between saving the galaxy, coming back from the dead, falling in love with a turian, and saving the galaxy _again_, I'm going to have the most page-turning memoirs ever."

**32 – Eye**

She confesses one night that she's always had a thing for men with blue eyes; he responds dryly, "I guess I'm lucky there are no blue-eyed batarians."

**33 – Never**

There was a time, years ago, when she occasionally envisioned herself having a "normal" life—a house on a planet, a husband of her own species, pregnancy tests to pee on, a baby attached to her hip—but now the memories inspire nothing but faint nostalgia.

**34 – Sing**

As he sits in his and Shepard's quarters, trying in vain to concentrate on his omni-tool, Garrus concludes that there are many things he never knew about humans; their tendency to make unholy warbling noises in the shower is right near the top of the list.

**35 – Sudden**

Blue blood seeps through her fingers as bullets scream past her head, and it takes her a moment to realize that that horrible keening sound is coming from her own throat.

**36 – Stop**

It isn't until Garrus slams both hands on the table and hisses "_Shepard_!" that she realizes she's cracking her knuckles again.

**37 – Time**

Their first attempt isn't exactly the stuff of legend—it's a little awkward, a little painful, and a learning experience for both—but as days and weeks turn to months and years, they discover together the truth of that old human adage _practice makes perfect._

**38 – Wash**

The first time Garrus walks by her smelling faintly of apples, Kelly is surprised; the second time she stifles a giggle, and the third time she raises her eyebrows at the commander and stage-whispers, "Nice having a private shower, isn't it?"

**39 – Torn**

His father's stony silence and his mother's _almost_-hidden disappointment leave a sour burn in his gizzard, festering even as he buries his talons in Shepard's hair and presses his forehead to hers.

**40 – History**

"_This_ was your species' idea of space-faring alien races?" Garrus asks incredulously when they sit down to a marathon viewing of _Star Wars_, and Shepard grins as she elbows him and shoots back, "Don't knock it—I had a Yoda action figure as a kid."

**41 – Power**

"I said _stand down_," she interrupts him, voice low and flat; he tightens his mandibles and his grip on his rifle, and for a brief moment she thinks the Alliance military was on to something when it outlawed fraternization.

**42 – Bother**

When they get a few minutes' reprieve from saving the galaxy, they hold a quiet commitment ceremony featuring a blend of human and turian traditions; the afterglow extends for several days before Shepard checks her email to find a dozen wounded messages from a not-invited Conrad Verner.

**43 – God**

"So if I'm Archangel," Garrus drawls, mandibles twitching in amusement, "and archangels are God's right-hand, ah, _beings_, then I guess that makes _you_ God."

**44 – Wall**

The silence between them is thick and tangible as stone until Shepard finally decides she's had enough—and when she shoves him up against the nearest hard surface and attacks seemingly all his erogenous zones at once, he suddenly can't remember why he was angry in the first place.

**45 – Naked**

She shivers lightly as his talons rove the length of her body, tracing the jagged remnants of the Lazarus Project's handiwork.

**46 – Drive**

They take the Hammerhead out on an uncharted world, just the two of them, and Shepard's eyes gleam wickedly when they put the vehicle to a decidedly _non_-Cerberus-approved use.

**47 – Harm**

Initially he's embarrassed about the marks he leaves on her skin, the rashes and bites and scratches, but she quirks her lips when she waves away the medi-gel and teases him: "Who says _you're_ the only one who can rock badass scars?"

**48 – Precious**

Their first Valentine's Day reduces Garrus to a bundle of nerves even as he carefully shifts his hold on Shepard's present, but when her eyes go wide at the sight of the tiny meowing kitten, he knows the stress was worth it.

**49 – Hunger**

In a dim corner of his mind, Garrus realizes he should probably find it odd that Shepard's casual disarming of malevolent batarian mercs turns him on far more than all the dancers gyrating on Afterlife's stage.

**50 – Believe**

"Yep, that was just as corny as I remember it," Shepard comments, pushing back her drenched hair as she and Garrus walk out of the stadium beneath the signs proclaiming _Believe: The Ultimate Shamu Experience!_

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Note: For anyone who doesn't get #50, _Believe_ is what they call the Shamu show at SeaWorld. The killer whale itself is cool, but the dramatic emotional "bond between whale and handler!" stuff they put in the show is a bit heavy-handed and cheesy, at least in my opinion. :p


End file.
